After Jiao Bingzhen (fl.1689-1726)


Scenes of Silk and Rice ProductionA series of 24 loose album leaves, ink and color on silk, each leaf illustrating various aspects rice and silk production of the 1696 woodblock printed version of the Gengzhi tu, with a wood box.8 3/4 x 9 1/8in (22 x 23cm), each leaf
|(仿) 焦秉貞 耕織圖 設色絹本 冊頁Didactic images of silk and rice production first appeared in Chinese culture around 1145 with the Southern Song dynasty court painter Lou Shou (1090-1162). Accompanied by poetic inscriptions describing the individual steps of production, these imperially sponsored images demonstrated the Emperor's interest in fostering sound agricultural and sericulture practices for these key economic engines--and sources of food and clothing for the nation, as well as government revenue through taxation.In the seventeenth century the Kangxi emperor commission the court artist Jiao Bingzhen to create a new edition of the Gengzhi tu, which was published as woodblock printed albums in 1696. As a result of the book's wide distribution, the imagery from the 1696 edition soon began appearing in a variety of media, on porcelain vases, lacquer screens, fine embroidery, and back to paintings, as seen in the present lot.